Keep Me Alive

3

3.1

          She was trembling, attached to the four poster bed in her parents' bedroom. Everyone was watching. Her parents were crying, snot and tears mixed together. It was a rather disgusting sight. Their wails were muffled by a cloth stained with spit and blood, tied fiercely at the back of their heads.

          "Now, why don't we try to make this show a little more entertaining? It's your birthday, after all." Rough, calloused hand gripped her ankles and she trashed around harder.

          "Oh my what a feisty brat! Settle down, birthday girl!" But she won't settle down. She can't. Not now, not ever. She can never settle down for the rest of her life.

          "Happy Birthday."

          I woke up with a blood-curdling scream.

          Immediately, arms wrapped around me and tried to stop me from peeling off my own skin. But I can't stop scratching. No, I can't.

          I need to get those dirty hands off me.

          "GET OFF ME! STOP TOUCHING ME! NO, DON'T! DON'T TOUCH ME!" I tried to pry off those arms off me but I can't. So I scratched those, too. My fingernails caught skin again and again. I didn't know who it belonged to. I just scratched.

          "DIE! JUST DIE! DIE IF YOU DON'T STOP TOUCHING ME! JUST DIE!" Why won't he die? Why is there a pair of arms around me? Arms? Not hands?

          "STOP! Stop...don't touch me. Mom and Dad are watching. Stop..." I cried. I wailed over and over again.

          The haze started to lift from my mind and I could hear someone whispering at the back of my head, breath warm and gentle on my scalp.

           "Shh."

          I sobbed gently, my throat closing up with pain and anger. Shame consumed me, making me curl myself into a ball, further sinking into his embrace. This felt different. I couldn't sense any ill intentions from him. I couldn't feel any rough hands on me.

          "You need to wash your arms and hands. We'll disinfect your wounds after."

          After a few minutes, I disentangled myself from him, sat up and went straight to the bathroom. I washed my arms and hands, especially my fingertips. There were a few traces of blood and skin underneath my fingernails and I cringed at the sight. After cleaning, I noticed that my arms only had a few wounds, maybe three small open wounds and a few long scratch marks. So it was him who took the damage this time.

          I checked my reflection in the mirror and cringed. I looked like hell.

          I splashed water on my face, dried it with my own shirt, and tried to blink out the horror that lingered in my eyes. After a few more blinks, I sighed. Of course I looked like hell. I went through hell.

          When I got out of the bathroom, he was already sitting up on the double bed, the sheets and pillows organized once again. He was holding our medical kit and was cleaning his wounds.

          Wounds that I inflicted.

          The guilt crashed into me like waves once again. As it always does every time this happens.

          "Does it hurt?"

          "Compared to a knife wound? No." I sighed again and sat down beside him. His arms were covered in scratches and nail marks. A few blood oozed out of some open wounds.

          "Lie down. Sleep as I treat your wounds." I nodded, but before I moved away from him, I kissed his forehead. I felt him tense up a bit but he didn't say a word.

          "Thank you." I whispered. I drank from a bottle of water placed on the bedside table before lying down on the bed.

          When I was already on my back, he scooted nearer and began putting medicine on my wounds. I watched him silently, his dark hair forming a shadow on his forehead, and his eyes tracing the scratches on my arms.

          When he was done, he looked at me straight in the eye and just stared.

          I stared back silently, with nothing to say. Suddenly, I felt exhaustion and my eyes drooped a little.

          "Close your eyes now. Sleep." So I did.

          But his voice echoed in my ears before I fell into a dreamless sleep.

          "Happy Birthday." I felt a kiss on my forehead and fingers wiping away stray tears on my cheeks.

          Happy 18th birthday to my pitiful self.